Filing all day in an unventilated shop must have brought drops of sweat thesize of horse ****. Are there any surviving examples in good condition of the type and cuts offiles that were in common use in metal working in the 1700's?

The subject of 18th c files was covered in the topic http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=22266.msg212509#msg212509. The only 18th - 19th c file I have ever gotten my hands on is the wood rasp shown in the topic. Still looking, but haven't seen any good examples so far. Probably most were "recycled" into knife blades, frizzens, etc. If you ever find a good old one, please post photos!

Some of you have noticed the heat discoloration of the rough pan seen in about the middle of the sequence of photos. What I did was this. As the pan groove/lockplate interface was nearly finished I saw that the fit would be better if I bent the long arm of the pan internal bolster downwards a bit to follow the curve of the lockplate upper surface. The bend was not very much, but it did make the fit better. Also, I heated the rough pan red hot, assembled it to the lockplate and moderately tapped on the pan internal bolster to close up any tiny gap between the rough pan and the lockplate. The setup was in the same position as the very last photo when the hot forging was done. You do not hit the hot metal very hard here, just a few light taps with a 16 ounce hammer will do the job. After this the pan/plate joint is nearly watertight.

The shop is shut down now, on my way to Ssumba village, Wakiso District, Uganda. See you all in September.

What a great tutorial! Looking forward to the next installment. Thanks for sharing Jim.

Capt. David

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Now that I am back in the USA, it is time to resume making this gunlock. At the Fair at New Boston I spent some time shaping the rough pan to the rounded shape I want for the lock. Here is how it looks after the rough shaping.

You wait until after the frizzen is installed to do the final shaping and to make sure that the pan/frizzen fit is good and tight.

Now for the job of installing the frizzen. For this lock I am using a ready made frizzen, maybe later I will show the process of forging a frizzen, but I felt lazy. It is difficult to clamp the frizzen and pan together to drill the frizzen screw hole correctly, especially with the rounded surfaces as with this lock design.

I use super glue and just glue the frizzen in its proper place on the pan. Yes, I know that this is not historically correct!

With the frizzen glued in place on the pan, check to be sure everything is aligned properly, then drill the frizzen cam hole using the existing lockplate hole as a guide. I am sure that you understand that these two holes will be in perfect alignment. This hole is the size for the screw thread tap.

Finally, you ream the frizzen cam hole to the body diameter of the frizzen screw and leave the lockplate hole the size to be later tapped for the frizzen screw thread. A gentile rap with a hammer will break the super glue joint apart. This technique will give a really good and tight fit of the frizzen to the pan.

I was able to do a little more work on the gunlock. I do the really hand made work as a show-n-tell for the visitors at the Fair at New Boston and the Somerset Mountain Craft Days. Here is the next installment. After the frizzen is installed the next step is to file the pan outline to match the frizzen. I leave the pan a bit oversize until after the frizzen is installed so I can get a good alignment. Not a whole lot of difference from the last photos as the metal removed from the pan is about 1/16 inch.

Next I install the partially completed frizzen spring, check out the entire process in the tutorial section. Notice that the cam nose on the frizzen is much too long, it will be trimmed back later.

Also, the pan bolster holding screw has been installed. The bolster has been trimmed back just until there is clearance for the tumbler bridal screw to pass. Later it will be final shaped to give clearance for the tumbler bridal and for the mainspring when at full cock. Remember, you can always cut things smaller, but making them bigger is a chore.

Good looking lock.With no pan bridle,how many times can the lock befired before the pivot screw gives a bit and upsets the fit to the pan.I made a couple of small ones about 50 years ago but have no strongmemories beyond the fact I did make them.

Good comment, Bob, and it is a bit of a concern when making the pan without the bridal/support arm. What I do is make the frizzen pivot screw from steel instead of wrought iron. This pivot screw is made from W1 drill rod and hardened and tempered like a spring. On this one I heated the screw to bright cherry, brine quenched and tempered to just beyond blue, probably about 700F or so. You can see the heat treat color on the frizzen pivot screw and not on the frizzen spring screw. This seems to give good results and I have seen no loosening of the fit over time.

I suspect that 250 yrs ago, on locks without frizzen bridles, the screw hole wore quickly when made of inferior fit/finish/materials. The bridled frizzen could be made with little more effort, and a lot less precision on the fitting and materials.

Having worked on English trade locks of various types, I can tell you that there was not much consideration given to how well they were made or would last. These things were obviously slapped together for a market that either didn't matter or didn't care. I really wouldn't give our 18th century English bretheran too much credit. There was the good stuff they made for the elite among themselves, and the junk they made for the unwashed masses and to send to us.

Now that I am back in the USA, time to make another part. This is the process for the interior bridal, I cut the part from a solid piece of wrought iron buggy wheel rim. The blank looks like a rectangular blade with a square lump on the back. Unlike assembling parts to a ready made lock kit, I find it much easier to drill the tumbler pin pivot hole first, then the screw holes later. Here is a picture of the blank installed on the lockplate. The dark rust is the original outside surface of the buggy wheel rim, the same raw material as used earlier for the pan.

The tumbler pin pivot hole is drilled so that the tumbler is nearly in contact with the lump on the bridal. Then the lump thickness is filed down until the lump is only about three hairs thicker than the tumbler to give the proper clearance for tumbler movement.

When this clearance is right, I superglue the bridal lump to the lockplate interior at the proper position. Then I drill the clearance hole for the bridal attachment screw using the existing lockplate screw hole as the guide. This way when the screw is installed, the tumbler pivot pin and the corresponding hole in the bridal plate are in perfect alignment. Note that this is backwards from the way a Siler kit is assembled.

Last the sear screw hole is drilled in the bridal plate using the existing lockplate screw hole as a guide. The next step is to shape the bridal plate to make it pretty. That's next time.

I seemed to have missed how you made the tumbler or did you use a part from another kit? I remember you showing me quite a few years back at the Hanna's town fair how you were making a tumbler using some modified pliers to cut the rounded surfaces. Is that your current method?

Right, I made the tumbler by forging, filing and finishing with a tumbler mill - but I did not document the process with photos. I will do that and post the photos when I get a round tuit. Here are photos of the tumbler as it is now - semi finished. The sear notches are the very last thing done, even after installing the mainspring. The tumbler is made from W1 steel, just about the same as 1095 steel.

James, I really enjoy following your progress, so keep up the good work!

I have two original old hand made locks very similar in style to what you're making, but with less curve on the bottom of the plate. One has unfortunately lost its rifle somewhere along the line, but the other is on a nice early 1780's J. Ferree rifle.

If my memory is correct, I used 5/8 inch square rod to forge the tumbler. I guess you could cut or machine it out of solid bar, but if you make the tumbler using modern machines like a lathe, you would probably have the start with a round bar over an inch in diameter. With forging you forge the rod to a large head much like an off center nail head before starting with a hacksaw & files. I really have to document this with photos when I get a round tuit. The reason this lock is taking so long is that I do the heavy work on a part in my shop and then finish the part at visitor demonstration show-n-tells. In the case of the bridal, I will cut & file the pretty outline shown on the part when the visitor crowd is looking over my shoulder.

There was a gunsmith here in Huntington WV that made tumblers from time to time and he usedwhat he called "barge spikes".They were large,square spikes used to hold the wooden decks on old style river barges. My own tumblers are made from 1144 "Stressproof" that is 1.250 in diameter.This material is easy to work with and all my tumblers start out with this diameter regardless of the final configuration.1144 machines as easy as 12L14 and will oil harden like 0-1,the best of two worlds so to speak.I doubt if I can make a lock using the methods seen on this forum from time to time and I wouldn't even try.The gunsmith I mentioned earlier was George W.Killen and in addition to the big spikes he used hood and window regulator springs from cars to make mainsprings from. I showed him the spring material I use and he said it was "too soft".I showed him a lock I made with this "too soft"material and he didn't believe me.I gave him a piece of it and he tried it and thought a miracle had occurred.Online metals is my current source for 1144 and so far,so good.

This is adding the photos and process for making the blank tumbler as was posted on the topic "tumbler mill", just to keep this topic complete. Eventually this will be changed over to a tutorial.

To make the tumbler I forge a blank from W1 tool steel, the same stuff as 1095 steel. The forging looks a lot like a large nail with an off center head. To help in the forging I use an iron bar with a through hole as a big stake setup to forge the head.

The tumbler mill is made using two opposing cutters that are screw adjustable. The stops on the screw threads are set to give the proper tumbler thickness.

The tumbler blank axle is filed to a slightly tapered round section that will pass about halfway through the mill large axle cutter. The blank is clamped in a vise with the axle pointing up. The lower half of the mill is then used to cut the axle to the proper diameter until the cutter contacts the head. The cutting action is a lot like using a typical die stock.

Now the entire mill is assembled and the tumbler blank axle is clamped in a vise. The screws are used to tighten the cutters against the forging and the whole tool is turned to begin cutting.

Much of the use of the tumbler mill is to mark the forging for a guide to use a coarse file to remove most of the metal. Here is a photo of the partially finished forging where you can see the circular cut marks from the mill and the file marks from the rough shaping.

Now is the time to cut the rough shape of the outside edge of the tumbler. Now the final cut is made and the process of using the tumbler mill is finished when the screws bottom out on the stops.